Make Large Bamboo? It's easy!

Recently I needed some fairly large pieces of bamboo to make legs for my outside bar. As you well know, buying bamboo is the easy part. Shipping it in 8 ft. sections will get pricey.

Yep, The back bamboos are fake, the front ones are real! This works for any size, but you need to use thin wall PVC pipe. That you can get at Home Depot, ($7.44 for 10ft)!

How'd I do it?
Check out the slide show HERE. http://www.lightsofthetropics.com/shamboo/index.html

Lemmie know what you think.
Kelly

[ Edited by: coolava 2008-05-20 11:33 ]

[ Edited by: coolava 2008-05-20 12:24 ]

[ Edited by: coolava 2015-06-22 06:42 ]

I thought this would be another post about painting PVC to look like bamboo, but the torching and creating real knuckles is really SWELL!
Your project turned out great!

ST

That's freakin' genius!!! Very cool!

The "Kewlava Method" of faux bamboo, sweet!

To make sure I understand, after you heat the knuckles, you press the pipe down against the floor to compress it? I tried unsuccessfully making knuckles out of PVC couplings turned on a wood lathe, this looks much better.

Well there ya go, an old trick refined. Don't forget your respirator, the fumes off that burning PVC are reeeely bad, and the spray paint ain't much better. Better to get high off strong rum drink, eh?

Excellent...
I thought at first that this was going to be a post about growing bamboo :D

Wow....very creative and great pics. BRILLIANT!!! :)

On 2008-05-20 14:07, MadDogMike wrote:

To make sure I understand, after you heat the knuckles, you press the pipe down against the floor to compress it?

That's what I figure. Re4ally nice. I might actually use PVC for shamboo, after all...

BRILLIANT!!

I tried my hand at the "Kewlava Bamboo", it's not as "Kewl" as the original, but maybe I have a different species of faux bamboo :)

I needed a reed fence shade to keep the blazing desert sun off my delicate "tropical" plants, the bamboo was just what I needed to make the frame. The uprights have a large wooden tree stake inside them, but the crossbar is self-supporting - it sags down a little but just adds to the effect. Your home improvement store also sells PVC "test plugs" that fit inside the end of the pipe in case you have an open end that shows, like the left side of the crossbar.

Anything worth doing, is worth doing to the point of wretched excess.

[ Edited by: MadDogMike 2008-06-03 21:06 ]

I'm always adding more stuff (as it should be) to the back yard. We've officially decided to call the place "Tiki Lagoon". Pretty odd for Arizona, but it's working.
We're shooting for some Tiki Room style elements (of course).

I made a sign from some warped 3/4 plywood I got from the off-cut bin at Home Depot.
The background woodgrain is painted, and the letters are 1/4 in. foam, glued on with contact cement.
I made the bamboo border out of halved wine corks I found in a huge jar at the neighbors' yard sale. Then I added some off-cut fake boo as bookends, from the now finished bar project in the bottom pic. Then I fiberglass resin painted the whole thing.

Whatcha guys think? (We still need to put stuff on the barback)

Very Nice, I like the surf board bar. Creative use of wine corks!

Nice step by step. Missed it when first posted. Will have to give it a try.

Great Work, always like making stuff out of what's laying around,nice how too on the bamboo, EyeballJohn

The technique works with smaller PVC also. I tried it with some 1/2 inch thinwall PVC to make a spitting tiki. You just have to be a little more careful when heating the pipe with the torch. I capped one end of my pipe and blew into it after I heated it so the pressure made the softened part of the pipe swell a little. The tiki isn't anything to brag about, especially here in the midst of real artists. It's carved in the "Neolithic Polynesian" style (kind of 2 demensional and flat) with primitive tools (a straight chisel and a claw hammer), but it matches my other 2 tikis.

Next, I may try a PVC bamboo water wheel. I think you could use regular PVC fittings for the joints, then just wrap them with jute twine to cover the fittings. Maybe varnish the twine to protect it and to keep it from loosening and exposing your PVC fittings

Here's another"shamboo" project!

I made a bunch of 4" diameter shamboo, and split it lengthwise. Then I mounted it to brackets, and lashed it all to the lattice deck roof facia.

I made smaller shamboo pieces, and mounted solar lights onto them, and attached them at each bracket.

I still want to add more theming to the lights.
Here is the link to my How-To slideshow for the shamboo. http://www.astrodesia.com/bamboo/index.html

Kelly

[ Edited by: kewlava 2008-09-07 09:40 ]

Kewl shamboo work! Did you make the patio furniture too? :)

Super-Koolamundo work, Kewlava, my friend!

I like! I like a LOT!

Ya'd never know it was faux!

And I LOVE your name "shamboo"! Very clever -- just like YOU!

(I SO wanna make the trek out there for a VISIT some time -- preferably when the air-conditioning in my CAR has finally been FIXED!)

Cheers! :drink: :tiki:

Castaway Clemens

Man that is pure brilliance. It takes a creative mind to see something new in the everyday! That bamboo technique is amazing! AND it looks amazingly realistic. My hat's off to you for that one!!!

That is killer.

What a great idea! Very creative...might have to try this one myself. Awesome name, too!